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The editor opens with the file. Everything below happens in that tab: your name, address and amounts are typed into a PDF in your own browser, and the saved copy goes back to your own disk.

Does my form have fields, or is it flat?

It takes 2 seconds to tell, and it decides the whole job.

1. Open the PDF in the editor and stay on the Select tool.
2. Look at the options bar above the page. A form with real fields shows “This file is a form: click a tinted field to fill it, Tab for the next one”, and its fields are tinted blue on the page. On a phone the bar sits above the tools at the bottom and says “A form: tap a tinted field to fill it.”
3. No hint and no blue boxes means no fields. The lines and boxes are printed ink, the same as the heading.

If you do see tinted fields, you are in the easier case: click, type, Tab to the next one, and Fill PDF form is the page for it. Some forms are mixed, with fields for the top half and bare lines further down. Fill the fields first, then add text where the fields stop.

How do I type on a form that has no fields?

1. Pick the Text tool (Add text in the tool column on the left, Text in the bottom bar on a phone, or press T).
2. Set the size before you start. In the options bar, open Size and pick 10 pt or 11 pt; leave Font on Sans (Arial, Helvetica) unless the form is set in a serif face, then pick Serif (Times). The tool keeps these settings for every line you add.
3. Click just above the line. The text box opens where you click, and its letters sit a little below that point, so a click about 1 letter’s height above the printed line puts the text on it.
4. Type and press Enter. Enter places the text; Shift+Enter starts a second line in the same box, which suits an address block.
5. Level it. The text you just placed stays selected. Press the arrow keys to move it 1 point at a time, or Shift and an arrow for 10 points. Dragging works too: the box catches on the edges and centres of everything else on the page, printed labels and lines included, and a guide line shows where it caught. Hold Alt while dragging to place it freely.
6. Go down the form. The Text tool stays in hand: click above the next line and type. The size stays as you set it.

Keep 1 size for the whole page. A form where every answer is 11 pt reads as filled in; a form with answers at 9, 12 and 14 pt reads as patched.

What text size fits the line?

10 to 11 pt suits the lines on most printed forms. The quick test: your answer should be about as tall as the printed label beside it, no taller. If the label is small, as on dense tax forms, match it with 9 pt or even 8 pt, the smallest in the Size list. An answer that does not fit at 9 pt does not belong on that line; most forms have a “continued on a separate sheet” route, and a blank page can be added with add a blank page.

How do I tick a checkbox on a flat form?

Type a capital X with the Text tool, at about the box’s height (a 10 pt X fits a typical 3 to 4 mm box), and drag it into the box: it snaps to the box’s edges and centre. For a round radio button, an X or a filled dot works the same way. On a form with real checkboxes, radio buttons and dropdowns, checkboxes, radio buttons and dropdowns covers how each behaves. The Shape tool can draw a cross or a circle instead if the form asks for one, but a typed X is quicker to place, and it is text, so it stays crisp in print.

Dates, amounts and the lines that need care

Most rejected forms are rejected for 1 of these, not for neat handwriting.

• Dates. A flat form cannot check your date. Copy the format the form prints next to the line (DD/MM/YYYY, MM/DD/YYYY), or write the month as a word: 14 March 1991 cannot be misread anywhere. The Sign tool has a Date button that places today’s date in your browser’s language with the month spelled out. Dates on PDF forms has the formats by country.
• Amounts. Write them the way the form’s own examples do (1,250.00 or 1.250,00), with the currency only if the line does not print it.
• Boxes for single characters. Some forms print a box per letter or digit. A single text line will not line up with them; place the characters in groups, or 1 per box for short codes, and check the result at 200 % zoom.
• Names and reference numbers written the same way on every page, especially on a long form.

When everything is on the page, add your signature with the Sign tool, and see sign and fill a PDF for the 3 ways to make one.

Save it, and should I flatten?

Click Save. The copy is a new file with -edited on the end of its name, so the blank form stays as it was. Your answers are real text: they can be selected, searched and copied, and you can change any of them later by opening the saved file and double-clicking the line with the Select tool.

On a flat form, flattening changes little: your text is already part of the page, not a field. Save flattened PDF (in the menu next to Save) still helps if you added notes or highlights, or if the form had a few real fields at the top. What flattening does and does not lock is in flatten a filled PDF form.

The honest part: what a flat form cannot do for you

A form with fields carries its own structure: a Tab order, field sizes, sometimes a list of allowed answers. A flat form has none of that, and no tool can invent it on the fly.

• You place every answer. There is no Tab order and nothing tells you that you missed a line. Before saving, zoom out and read the form top to bottom.
• Nothing is checked. A flat form takes a date in any format and an amount in any shape. The checking is yours.
• getPDF does not turn a flat form into a fillable one. Creating new fields is not in the editor yet. If you send the same form out to many people, a form tool that adds fields (Acrobat’s Prepare a Form, or LibreOffice when you have the source document) is the better route.
• A scanned form is a picture. Typing on it works exactly as above, because you place text on top of the page. If you also want the printed words to be searchable, run OCR first; scanned PDF to searchable explains what OCR adds.

Everything else, from the first click to the saved file, happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, and once you have opened a file in the editor, you can turn Wi-Fi off and keep going.